The 31-year-old has resigned after getting caught breaking the rules again. This time the crime was fabricating quotations and attributing them to music legend Bob Dylan. A writer for Tablet magazine, Michael Moynihan, read the ersatz quotes in Lehrer's book "Imagine: How Creativity Works" and thought they seemed suspicious. When confronted about them, Lehrer initially lied about their provenance, claiming they came from unpublished interview footage. Only when pressed did he admit the truth.

Lehrer resigned Sunday night. His tenure on The New Yorker's staff lasted less than two months. David Remnick, the magazine's editor in chief, said in a statement, "This is a terrifically sad situation, but, in the end, what is most important is the integrity of what we publish and what we stand for."

In general, however, The New Yorker's impressive fact-checking department, an incubator for numerous noted careers in journalism, deserves credit for keeping the magazine's pages impressively free of falsehoods and inaccuracies. It's likely no coincidence that Lehrer's questionable work was published not in the magazine itself but on its less rigorously edited website. Even so, the curious nature of the misdemeanor made it easy for the magazine to resolve the incident, once he had been cleared of outright plagiarism.

Lehrer's publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, has put a freeze on shipping new copies of "Imagine" while it reviews his work and considers its options. According to Nielsen BookScan, the hardcover edition of "Imagine" has sold 107,000 units, although that figure only represents about 70% of hardcover sales and doesn't count e-books.

Three weeks ago, I received an email from journalist Michael Moynihan asking about Bob Dylan quotes in my book IMAGINE. The quotes in question either did not exist, were unintentional misquotations, or represented improper combinations of previously existing quotes. But I told Mr. Moynihan that they were from archival interview footage provided to me by Dylan's representatives. This was a lie spoken in a moment of panic. When Mr. Moynihan followed up, I continued to lie, and say things I should not have said.

The lies are over now. I understand the gravity of my position. I want to apologize to everyone I have let down, especially my editors and readers. I also owe a sincere apology to Mr. Moynihan. I will do my best to correct the record and ensure that my misquotations and mistakes are fixed.

I've been covering the business of news, information and entertainment in one form or another for more than 10 years. In February 2014, I moved to San Francisco to cover the tech beat. My primary focus is social media and digital media, but I'm interested in other aspects, ...